


A Trip to the Circus (or Five)

by odd_izzy



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Batfamily (DCU), Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Dick Grayson-centric, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Good Older Sibling Dick Grayson, Haly's Circus (DCU), Paparazzi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27662824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odd_izzy/pseuds/odd_izzy
Summary: A series of shorts about several different occasions on which Haly's Circus came back to Gotham and Dick introduced his new family to his old one.
Relationships: Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Comments: 104
Kudos: 287





	1. Five

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! If you came to this because you are subscribed to me, you have probably completely forgotten who I am because it's been literally 2 years since I last posted a Batman story (which still only has one chapter, oops!) but I hope that you enjoy this anyway! If you're new to me, I hope you enjoy this enough to look at some of the other things I've written! I stopped writing fanfiction for a long time, not particularly consciously, but because I was working on an original novel and I never really let room in my writing brain to think of new ideas. And I still haven't, because I dusted this one off from the ideas folder where once upon a time I had written about 100 words of the first chapter. But I really missed writing fanfiction, and getting nice comments and feeling like part of a community - aspiring to be a professional writer is one thing, but publishing fanfiction is it's one kind of wonderful and I can't believe I forgot that for so long.   
> The tags are for the whole story, so you can probably have a good guess at what some of the future chapters are going to be! Please leave a comment below if you liked it, it means so much to know that someone has even gone to the trouble of posting so much as a smiley face.

**Five**

“Why must you insist on holding my hand, Grayson? I am not a child,” Damian said with a huff.

He and Dick were part of a small crowd walking towards the entrance to a large circus tent, excited noises and the smell of popcorn filling the air.

“It’s very easy to get separated when there are this many people around, and it would be really hard to find each other again.” Dick smiled. “I wouldn’t want you to have to face the indignity of the Lost Children’s Tent,” he said.

While Damian gave him a small smile for his consideration, Dick mentally added ‘And I don’t trust that you would actually go there if we got split up, including if a well-meaning adult tried to take you.’

Since it was so soon before the show, most of the people Dick wanted to introduce his little brother too would be backstage preparing, but he had still dragged Damian around to various booths to say hello and be told how big he’d gotten. Damian was still sulking a little because Ellen, who used to watch Dick while his parents rehearsed when he was a toddler, had let him have a free go on the coconut shy and the ten-year old had been unable to win the stuffed tiger he was trying to pretend he didn’t have his heart set on.

Despite the fact that Damian was capable of some pretty impressive gymnastics himself, and had seen Dick practising up close, the acrobats still left him with his mouth hanging a little open. Haley’s Circus still didn’t have another trapeze act, in memory of the Flying Graysons, but they had people being thrown into the air and spinning like they were completely unaffected by physics, and contorting themselves midair to jump through impossibly-small seeming hoops. As Dick had been counting on, there was no such thing as a child too much of a stoic to enjoy the magic of the circus.

When Dick was younger, it had upset him a great deal when the circus, faced with new legislation in several cities it usually toured, had to make the difficult choice to cut animal acts from the show. His childhood best friend, Zitka the elephant, had never seemed unhappy to him, and he knew she was treated well by everyone and seemed to enjoy performing for the crowds. He hadn’t even told Bruce that he was upset, but somehow the world’s greatest detective had turned his skills towards being a parent, and he bought Zitka from Haley’s and had her housed in the elephant enclosure at Gotham Zoo. And of course, he also paid for the elephant enclosure to be expanded and upgraded, and sponsored a conservation programme on the zoo’s behalf. Dick could see her as often as he liked, and she seemed really happy to be around other elephants and still being seen by a lot of tourists, but she still came over to the viewing platform whenever she saw Dick. Taking Damian to meet her a few weeks ago was the first time he felt like the boy was actually impressed with anything he did – apparently the League of Assassins can’t train elephants to come when called.

Damian scoffed a little at the magic act, understandable since he’d met several magic users before, and once you’ve seen Zatanna do her thing you’ll never be impressed by stage magic again. The clown act was never done in performances in Gotham City, so their clown got a nice few weeks off that he usually spent helping out as an extra stagehand. The contortionist got some impressed looks, and Dick could almost see Damian taking mental notes on how to improve his usual stretching regime, and the knife thrower got some nods of approval, as if to a professional peer.

Dick had been a little bit uncertain about taking Damian to the circus, since the boy seemed to see any display of prowess of any kind as a personal challenge, and Haly’s Circus features some of the best performers in the world in their respective fields. However, he’s glad that he ignored that hesitation and focused on what’s important: Haly’s is an important part of Dick’s life, and by sharing it with Damian he’s showing trust and acceptance into the family. And of course, even for someone like Dick who grew up in it, the circus is a magical place. Every child, not matter how hardened they seem, deserves to experience this kind of magic.

After the show, Dick is going to take Damian around and introduce him to all the performers and to Mr Haly, and it will be great to see the convergence of his old family and his new one. But for now, he just watches the tiny child beside him, bucket of popcorn forgotten in his lap as he stares open-mouthed at the show, and smiles.


	2. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim gets caught up in some memories when Dick takes him, Steph, and Cass to Haly's Circus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading the second chapter of this story! As seems to be entirely typical of my stories, the chapters are getting progressively a little bit longer with each one I write, sorry about that. The response I got from the first chapter has just been so wonderful, and I'd like to give a special thanks to the people who read and left me comments after I very unsubtly asked them to in comments on their own stories, especially those outside the Batman fandom. You guys rock! By total coincidence, I was at 999 kudos over all my stories before I posted this one, so this has very decisively pushed me over that wonderful milestone, so thank you to everyone who has left me kudos on any of my stories - and if you're new to me, why not check out some of my other work once you're done here? There isn't very much of it!

**Four**

Tim was just meandering along, watching Dick talking to Cass at a million miles an hour and her calm nods and smiles in return, when Steph tugged at his hand.

“Come on Tim, what’s going on? We’re at the circus that your brother literally grew up in, how is that not blowing your mind?”

He managed a half-smile in her direction. “Sorry if I’m bringing the mood down, I just… I know that to Dick, this circus is the first, what, eight years of his life and he decided not to let the happy memories he has here be marred by one awful memory. I’ve just got the one afternoon.”

“Shit, I totally forgot, you were there? At that show?”

The memories that Tim had been trying to suppress since the eerily familiar sign for Haly’s Circus had come into view flooded back.

It had been an unusually pleasant afternoon for Gotham; the city that seemed perpetually shrouded in smog and where it rained a lot more often than not on days when fun weather dependant events aimed at children were happening. Some jaded weather meteorologist, when asked about this phenomenon, had remarked that the reason Gotham’s events were rained out so often in comparison to neighbouring city Metropolis was because God was trying to protect the children.

Tim himself had had a wonderful day. Both of his parents were there with him, and he was still young enough that that was a strange and exciting gift rather than the bitterness he found in its scarcity as he got older and figured out that most people thought it was odd for a child to only see their parents a few times a year. They were having a really fun day together, playing with him, and holding him up so that he could try the carnival games. They had all cheered and danced around when a complete fluke at the coconut shy managed to win him a tiger.

Then, because his parents were Very Important People, they got a little backstage tour before the show started. Tim had been a bit intimidated at first by all of these strange adults in bright costumes and heavy makeup, but he had been coaxed out of his shell when he met the acrobat troupe. They were a family group, and their family had been performing the same act in Haly’s Circus for generations. The son, a boy who seemed very grown up to Tim but was really only a few years older than him, had talked to Tim specially, and made taking a photo together seem totally safe even when he was held on the strange boy’s knee. He beamed at the camera, forever immortalising the moment that little Tim decided that he loved the circus, and then the boy told him about the special move, the quadruple somersault.

Tim very proudly said that he knew that quadruple meant four, but then he had to sheepishly ask what a somersault was. In lieu of words, Tim got an instant demonstration, and was told that their family was the only acrobat troupe in the world that could do four somersaults midair in a row from the trapeze. And in this show, his quadruple somersault would be especially for Tim.

Teenage Tim snapped out of his memories as Cass prodded at his shoulder. He had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed that they’d reached the tent. Dick was a little way in front of them, excitedly saying something to the fond-looking ticket taker and occasionally pointing back at the trio of teenagers.

Cass poked him again. “Tim. Why are you sad? Dick is happy. The circus is loud but happy. Dick said we get free popcorn. Do you not like popcorn? I can eat yours too.”

Steph gently stopped her best friend from poking her boyfriend again. “You know how Dick’s parents died here during a show, and that’s how he ended up living with Bruce? Tim was really little, but he was there at that show and saw it happen, and now he’s like, traumatised about the circus or something.”

Cassandra Cain, who had earlier used her considerable ninja skills to win giant prizes at every booth and give them away to delighted children and horrified parents, tilted her head. “That’s stupid.”

“Hey!” Steph said, “It’s not stupid! People are allowed to have feelings about things, and this is the feeling Tim has about this.”

“No. Stupid. Dick is very happy we are all here. He said it’s like getting to introduce his new family, us, to what’s left of his parents. Can be the same for you.”

Tim was a little taken aback – he hadn’t realised that this little excursion meant that much to Dick. Sure, he’s been excited when, about six months ago, he told them that the circus he grew up in was coming back to Gotham for the first time in a while and they should keep opening weekend free in their calendars. But Dick was always excited about something – that was how to tell the difference between Dick and Nightwing, since wearing the Nightwing costume seemed to make him capable of standing still for more than a few seconds.

Then, Stephanie took his hand and smiled at him in that way that made him feel like something inside him was melting. “Tim, maybe Cass is right and you can do the same thing. Think of coming back here as a way to revisit that great day with your parents when you were all happy, not the sad day that it became. Introduce us to those people.”

And so, after the show, Tim dragged Dick backstage to the exact spot where he had once sat on his knee and been promised a quadruple somersault, and Mr Haly was happy to help them retake the photo. Cassandra and Stephanie stood behind them, where Dick’s parents had once stood, and they all laughed as Tim, now no longer half Dick’s age, struggled to balance on his knee again. The show had been just as amazing as he remembered, and it was wonderful to share something with some of his new family that he had shared with his old one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed chapter two! I've never written Cassandra Cain or Stephanie Brown before, so I hope I did ok with them - Cass was especially hard to find a voice for, so I went back to various ways comics writers have written her for inspiration. I would love feedback on this is anyone has any!  
> As the other endnote says, I am still taking prompts for short stories or one-shots, and I am in a lot of different fandoms that I haven't ever written for, so hit me up about anything and I'll let you know if I can have a go at it!


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick finally gets to take Jason to the circus, a few years later than he wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon timeline? What canon timeline? All you need to know is that this somehow happens sometime before the previous chapter but still probably a few years after Jason's death/resurrection/reign of terror, because I ordered them by characters and not by thinking very much about a logical sequence of events. Thank you so much to everyone whose read, commented, and given kudos on the first two chapters. It really means the world to get such lovely messages that you're enjoying it!

**Three**

The Red Hood was as agile as a cat as he grappled over the streets of Gotham, the people out and about in the early evening never even looking up as their silent protector swung over their heads. He wasn’t scared of anything in his city; he was the scariest thing in it. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, but the dark should be afraid of him. He was every criminal’s worst nightmare and a hero to the poor and downtrodden. He was… being followed?

During his next jump between buildings, he flipped himself around mid-swing and quickly rolled into a fighting stance, ready to kick whoever thought they could get the drop on the Red Hood off the building. Only to sigh and stand up fully at the sight of Nightwing, his supposed big brother, excitedly waving at him from the building across the street, seemingly completely oblivious to the air of badassery that his puppy-esque demeanour was putting at risk.

Nightwing held up a finger, telling him to wait where he was, and proceeded to flip around over the rooftops in complete defiance of the laws of physics and probably with far more flair than necessary until he was stood in front of him. “Hi Little Wing!”

After looking around and determining that they were on the tallest building in the vicinity and the scanner in the helmet couldn’t see anybody who was in a position to be able to see them, Red Hood removed his helmet to reveal the scowling face of Jason Todd. Still not easily identifiable, of course, because of the domino mask he was wearing underneath. The scowl-diminishing effects of wearing a mask were sadly worth the benefit to preserving a secret identity. “What do you want, Dickface.”

Dick’s smile was unwavering even though Jason knew that he had to be itching to pull a “no names in the field”, and was only holding back because he already knew Jason’s reply – that he hadn’t said his name. It was one of those fun little running jokes they had. “Little Wing, I have great news. The circus is in town!”

Jason frowned. “Is that some weird euphemism for something that I don’t know about? Is this your way of telling me I’m going to be an uncle?”

“What? No! The circus, the actual circus, MY actual circus, is in Gotham. And… I’m asking if you’ll come and see a show with me.”

“A show? You want me to go to the circus with you? Is this a case you need my help with? Because I’m busy, I’ve got my own stuff in the works.”

“No, no case. Just a show. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but it would be nice if you did. I always meant to take you sometime, before, you know….”

“Before I got blown up and you didn’t even come to my funeral?”

Jason didn’t need to be able to see through his brother’s mask to know that his eyebrow was twitching. It was what happened every time Dick wanted to shout that he hadn’t been on Earth at the time and would have been there if he knew. But Dick knew that Jason knew that and was just pushing his buttons, as was his duty as a younger brother, so he just took a deep breath and plastered a blinding smile back onto his face.

“Please, Little Wing? It would mean a lot to me.”

As much as Jason liked to think he was a tough, independent vigilante with no family left to tie him down, he could feel something inside him melt a little bit when his big brother made that face at him. Dick was very difficult to say no to and he knew it.

“Fine, I’ll come and see your show. Not like I had much going on tonight anyway, just a regular patrol. No skin off my back. Where are we going?”

Dick looked so happy he was practically vibrating. “Well, first you are going to wherever the nearest place you have civilian clothes is, because sitting and watching from the rafters isn’t an option for the circus. It’s a tent. And then, I’m going to bring a car around and pick you up, because if you arrive without me then they might charge you full price for your ticket. This is so exciting!”

Jason mentally calculated how far it was to his nearest safehouse. He wouldn’t need to do much, just ditch the helmet and mask and the less easily concealed weapons, and maybe change into a shirt that didn’t have any blood on it. “Alright, I can do pretending to be normal to sit in a circus for a night. But you’re buying snacks, and I get to leave at halftime if it’s boring.”

“Sounds great! Text me the address and I’ll pick you up in half an hour. You’re going to love it!” Dick said, bouncing on his toes in excitement. It did occur to him that Jason might just ditch him, and he wished that he could follow him to make sure he didn’t, but he had to get changed into his own civilian gear – it would be awful to go to Haly’s and not be able to say hi to everyone!

Dick never mentioned that there wasn’t a halftime or any kind of interval at the circus show. Jason never noticed: he would deny it, but by the end of the first performance, he was completely absorbed in the show. Dick had thought that taking his fully grown little brother a few years later than he had meant to would leave him feeling the distance of those years, but Dick couldn’t see the usually stark differences between the young man beside him and the excitable preteen he had first met but not spent nearly enough time with. There was something about a circus show that brought out everyone’s inner child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original plan for the Jason chapter was Dick's original plan for the Jason chapter - a nice moment of brotherly bonding after Bruce adopted Jason where the tiny child who grew up in poverty could experience a show for the first time and he would look up to his big brother and love him. And of course, Dick let his conflict with Bruce and his commitments to the Teen Titans get in the way of ever spending any meaningful time with Jason before he was killed. But he came back to life, and after he got a bit less crazy, Dick had a second chance at being a good big brother to him.  
> I hope you liked this chapter, and if you did, let me know in the comments! I love writing Jason, he is probably my favourite. I am still taking prompts, anything you want to see me write at all, and I'm already taking a stab at the first one I've been given!


	4. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A teenage Dick takes a special someone to the circus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took a little longer to get out than I thought it would, it just got away from me. It could have been a lot longer, it could have been a lot shorter, so I hope you like how it ended up! This entire series of stories could get a deleted scenes! If anyone has any scenes they want to see, let me know! If there's enough demand for it, I may actually put together a chapter of short deleted scenes.

**Two**

Dick nervously paced back and forth over the Gordon’s front step, bouquet of flowers from Gotham’s most expensive flower shop in hand. He was trying to muster the courage to ring the doorbell, and had been doing so for the past few minutes. Luckily, his nerves (and maybe Alfred’s anticipation of this problem) had got him to the door quite early to pick Barbara up on their first official date. He looked back at the car, hoping for some moral support from Alfred, and got an entirely fair judgemental eyebrow raise. He was Robin, he had mocked some of the most dangerous people in Gotham, if not in the world, right to their faces. He could press a doorbell.

He pressed it, and internally panicked until the door swung open to reveal the smiling face of Jim Gordon: his dad’s friend, Gotham’s chief of police, and, most relevantly right now, Barbara’s father. Bruce’s warning that some fathers of young ladies tried to be very intimidating and aggressive to young gentlemen coming to pick them up for first dates seemed to not have been necessary for Jim. Although seeing the man who was usually tired and grumpy when Dick saw him (which was usually on the roof of the police department, to be fair) with a big smile on his face as he ushered Dick inside was strangely terrifying.

“Barbara will be down in just a few minutes, Dick, she’s finishing up getting ready. Where are you going tonight?”

“The circus, sir. It’s just in town until this weekend,” he said, awkwardly sitting down.

Jim frowned in confusion. “A circus? You don’t think that it might be a little… childish, for the two of you? I was expecting something more like dinner at a nice restaurant and a movie. You can’t tell me Bruce wouldn’t give you enough Barbara loves those action blockbusters, you know, superheroes and such. I think there’s a new one just out that she hasn’t seen yet?”

Dick grimaced a little. “Thanks for the tip, sir, but this is our first date, hopefully of many, and I want this to be special. And the circus is the most special thing I could think of. I’d actually been trying to work up the courage to ask Babs to go with me since they got here a few weeks ago.”

This was exactly why Dick hadn’t been planning on bringing up exactly why he was taking Barbara to the circus – the flickers of emotions over Mr Gordon’s face as he suddenly remembered the first day he had met Dick, more than five years earlier, shivering with Bruce’s jacket over his costume in the shadow of a circus tent, tear-stained face sporadically illuminated by the red and blue flashing lights of the police cars and the useless ambulances.

“This is your circus that’s in town, huh?”

“It is sir, yes.”

“What was that name again?”

“Haly’s Circus. Run by Mr Jack Haly. Been in his family for generations.”

“That’s right, nice fellow. I met him under bad circumstances, of course, but I remember he was really concerned about you, kid. Kept asking me if I was totally certain that Bruce was on the up-and-up, and if I’d watch out for you too, just to be sure.”

Dick might have said something else, but he was rendered totally speechless because Barbara had just walked down the stairs, looking absolutely amazing. He’d told her not to dress too fancy, so she was just in jeans and a nice top, but she could have been wearing a ballgown or a sack for all he cared. He could still barely believe that she had agreed to go out with him at all.

He quickly remembered the flowers he was still tightly holding and thrust them and in front of him. “These are for you.”

“Dick, they’re beautiful, thank you.”

“So are you,” he said, somehow getting lucky enough that blurting out exactly what he was thinking made her blush and made her dad raise his eyebrows, impressed, instead of ending the date before it started. Or getting him slapped, like at that gala when he accidentally told a woman that her boobs looked fake. Maybe living with Bruce was rubbing off on him and making him... smooth?

After Barbara had put the flowers in a vase and her dad had seen them off, reminding them again what time Barbara’s curfew was, they got in the car and Alfred drove them out to where the circus pitched when they were in Gotham. He left them there with a reminder of where he would be waiting after the show was over and to call if there was a problem, and then the two of them were alone.

They had a bit of time before the show, so Dick took Barbara around some of the booths surrounding the circus, and they played some of the games. When people who knew him saw him and that he was on a date, he gave them some stern looks to try to discourage the telling of embarrassing stories from his childhood. After showing Babs the tricks to actually winning a few of the more deceptive games, however, he couldn’t escape retribution, and so she got to hear about some of the shenanigans he got up to with Zitka the elephant, and how he used to throw peanuts at audience members from the back of the seats during the shows.

Barbara seemed to be enjoying meeting so many people who had known him from when he was a baby, and when she wasn’t looking he got several nods of approval of her, and at least one subtle thumbs up. As they headed into the show itself, Mr Haly appeared, in his usual pre-show fluster. He gave Dick a warm hug, shook Barbara’s hand, and showed them to the best seats in the house, third row centre, where they were close to the action but far enough back that they wouldn’t have to crane their necks to watch the aerial acts.

The show started, and both teenagers were entranced. Dick must have seen variations of this show hundreds of times, but it was still magical. And there was something especially magical about being able to look over and see Barbara’s face alight with wonder – somehow she looked even more beautiful. At some point during the contortionist act, Dick employed one of the moves Bruce taught him for his first date, which he had said was ‘a classic’ – he pretended to stretch his arms, and ended up with one of them around Barbara’s shoulders. She gave him a look that said that she knew what he was doing, but she didn’t move his arm, and she moved a little closer to him. Dick decided in his head at that moment that Bruce was definitely a genius.

They didn’t have their first kiss that night, even though Alfred pointedly parked the car a few houses down from the Gordons so he wouldn’t be able to see them once they were stood by her door. Batgirl and Robin had their first kiss on a rooftop in Gotham a few nights later, the caravan of trucks carrying the circus onwards to the next city slowly winding its way along the streets below them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! If you did, please leave me a comment, it would mean a lot to me, and I am still taking prompts of all kinds. I am going to start working on what I have so far as soon as I'm finished with this one, so the sooner you give me an idea, the earlier up in the queue it will go!


	5. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick makes his first trip back to the circus after... you know. Bruce shakes hands (trunks?) with an elephant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, this one really got away from me! I've been working on it on and off since I posted the last chapter, and it just kept getting snagged somewhere or ending up longer and longer. There are lots of feelings in here that I didn't know the characters had until I was writing them down, and I would like to point out, as I think I've said to a few people in comments, that the running theme of families was completely unintentional, and I just set out with a really basic idea of writing about different times Dick went with different members of his family to the circus over the years when it visited Gotham. This is the first chapter chronologically, hence why it's called 'One' (I hope everyone figured that chapter naming system out!) but there will be a chapter 6. As soon as I write it. Soon, I promise! Enjoy!

**One**

Dick had been excitedly buzzing around the Manor for weeks, breaking several more of the priceless family heirlooms that he hadn’t previously broken and Alfred disliked enough that he hadn’t packed away safely away from pre-teen acrobats. Today, though, he seemed almost subdued. Bruce would be more concerned if he wasn’t totally certain of the reason: Dick’s manic happiness had started when he found out that Haly’s Circus was coming back to Gotham, and it had finally dawned on him that getting to see his circus family again meant going back to the place that he last saw the day his parents died. And it would be hard, Bruce was sure, because every time he forced himself back to dingy alleyway where his own parents died, there’s still a second where his heart stops and he can see their bodies lying on the ground again, his mother’s pearls bouncing over the cobblestones.

If Dick’s parents had died in an alley, Bruce knew he would do everything in his power to make sure Dick never had to see it again. He would have it walled up, or have it covered in murals, or have the buildings on either side torn down and a new big one built in their place. Whatever Dick wanted. But the place where Dick’s parents died was the middle of a circus tent, and Dick would have to see it again to see a show at the circus again, and that seemed to be the one thing he wanted to do more than anything else in the world.

So today they would go to the circus, and Dick could get a hug from every single member of the company, and see the elephant that he constantly talked about, and his therapist had high hopes that this would help him move on both in the grieving process and in feeling more settled in Gotham and Wayne Manor. It seemed counter-intuitive, but apparently having people who used to be a big part of his life come back to visit will reinforce the idea that the part of his life lived in the circus is over. Bruce and Alfred have both been reading a pile of books on helping children cope with loss – as well as buying ones published in the last few years, Alfred also pulled a stack out of his cupboard. Bruce didn’t need to ask.

Whatever the therapist or the mountain of books had said, Bruce knew that there was no way he could possibly have looked that child in the eyes and told him that he couldn’t see the people (and animals) he considered family when they came back to Gotham. He didn’t have the emotional strength and willpower, and he was Batman. And he wasn’t now going to let Dick’s nerves and grief get in the way of something he was sure would make his kid happy and mentally healthier in the long term. Which is why Bruce was wandering around his house, cursing his ancestors in his head for deciding that it should have so many rooms, and looking for one small child hiding in one of them. He might never have found Dick if he hadn’t thought to take a pair of heat-vision goggles from the Batcave, since Dick was well hidden behind what Bruce thought might be his great-grandmother’s wedding dress and furs for special occasions in the seventh guest suite.

Bruce sat down in front of the wardrobe. “Want to tell me what you’re feeling, chum?”

The wardrobe remained silent.

“How about I take a guess, then. I think you might be feeling kind of weird about seeing the circus again. Am I right?”

There was an almost imperceptible sniffle, a slight movement of some of the furs, and a very quiet “Maybe”.

“It’s going to be a bit weird, chum, of course it is, but you know how much you’ve been looking forward to seeing everyone at the circus again. Once you’re there with those people that you love and that love you, the weirdness will be gone before you know it.”

He heard the furs move again, and then the door opened a crack, enough for Bruce to make out one blue eye in the darkness. “You really think so?”

“I do. And you know, Alfred and I have been really looking forward to seeing the show, since you’ve made it sound so wonderful, and we really do feel like we have to meet your elephant friend Zitka. It sounds like she’s an extraordinary animal.” Bruce carefully did not mention that he had, of course, seen part of the Haly’s Circus show before, but that show was cut short rather abruptly so Bruce didn’t feel like it counted. Alfred was genuinely looking forward to seeing the show, and kept saying that he hadn’t been to a circus since he left England.

A second eye emerged from behind a fur coat. “Zitka won’t have forgotten me, will she?”

This one was the easiest answer so far. “Of course not. Elephants have fantastic memories, you’ve never heard the saying ‘An elephant never forgets’?”

Dick slowly emerged from the wardrobe, Bruce helping him by holding some of the coats out of his way. Wow, furs were heavy. And he really needed to get around to finding one of those programmes that uses real fur coats to help abandoned baby animals, it wasn’t like anyone would ever wear these again, and if he delivered them in person, he might get to meet some baby animals. His love of small cute things was Bruce’s deepest secret; although, looking down at his ward’s enormous blue eyes, it occurred to him that that secret might be out.

“I think I’m ready to go now, B,” Dick said, giving him a strong attempt at a smile. How did Bruce ever manage to live without him?

“Not without putting your winter coat on you aren’t, Master Dick,” said Alfred from the doorway. Oh yeah, Bruce thought, that’s how.

Once everyone was dressed according to Alfred’s standards for sitting inside large tents in winter, they were off. Dick still looked a little anxious, but he was bouncing up and down in his seat too – excitement that became much more evident the moment that Dick spotted the tent. Bruce had been worried that seeing it again for the first time would trigger something, but it seemed that all Dick associated the sight of the tent with were the people he loved that were near or underneath it, and Bruce almost had to grab him to stop him squirming out of his seatbelt and jumping out of the car right there and then. Once they were parked, though, the lesser risk to Dick’s life of jumping out of a parked car than a moving one made Bruce too slow to grab Dick before he opened his door and darted off.

After the initial parent panic moment subsided, Bruce was able to remind himself that Dick knew exactly where he was going, there were dozens of adults around the circus who knew him and would probably kill for him, and regardless of all of that he was Robin, and after about a year of training was probably one of the best martial artists under the age of ten in the world. He still got out and started walking with long strides towards the tent pretty quickly, though, leaving Alfred thoroughly ditched. Thankfully, he caught sight of Dick pretty quickly, and what he saw had him stop walking for a minute so he could just watch. Dick seemed to have jumped over the short fence separating the crowd from the elephant, who was clearly calm enough that she could handle lots of people staring and taking pictures and so made for an extra attraction before the show started. And he had his arms wrapped around her trunk as far as they would go, and the rest of her trunk was wrapped around him. Clearly, this elephant that Dick had missed so much had missed him too.

Alfred came up to stand beside him, also taking in the sweet reunion. “You know, of course, that young Master Dick missing parts of his old life has no bearing on your skills as a parent.”

“Of course.”

“Excellent. Let’s go and introduce ourselves then, shall we?”

Dick was overjoyed to be able to introduce them both to Zitka the elephant, who, in one of the more surreal experiences of Bruce’s life (COUNTING learning that Superman was a mild-mannered reporter who grew up on a farm in Kansas) carefully shook each of their hands with her trunk. As with everything, Alfred appeared entirely unfazed by the experience, and seemed perfectly at ease shaking hands with an elephant for what HAD to be the first time. Someday Bruce would catch him looking remotely flustered or surprised, and that would be the sign the world was ending.

Once they were properly acquainted with Zitka, Dick ran around the circus grounds as fast as he could go while holding both of their hands at once and dragging them behind him. They were introduced to what seemed like dozens of people running booths or setting things up behind the fence that Bruce was sure that they weren’t supposed to have shimmied through, and every one of them stopped what they were doing to give Dick a hug, marvel at how big he’d gotten, catch him up on some piece of circus gossip or other, and wait until Dick was distracted or out of earshot to sincerely thank Bruce and Alfred for taking such good care of him. Bruce found himself sincerely telling an awful lot of complete strangers about how much better Dick had made his life, and by the time they were being ushered into the theatre by Mr Haly, who seemed to find nothing unusual about Dick clinging onto his shoulders and jabbering away in his ear, he had a strange but pleasant feeling. It was like all of these people had become his family too, by virtue of their shared love for this one wonderful child.

Perhaps this was a documented phenomenon – Bruce was making a mental note to check in all of his collected psychology journals on adoptive families just as the lights went down, himself and Alfred sat on either side of the child who, against all the odds, seemed at that moment to be perfectly content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, and that you all had a nice whatever-you-celebrate! Now that I'm so close to the end of this story, I really would love some prompts. I've just got two to work on at the moment, and I'm trying to get back into writing regularly but have a total dearth of good short story ideas, so I would really appreciate any that you would like to see me write! Once again, please leave comments, they really make me incredibly happy and are absolutely the most motivational thing in the world. I think I could probably graph how long it takes me to write the next chapter of a thing to how many comments I got on the last chapter, as terrible and unhealthy as that may be. Still, we all crave external validation! If you want to just shoot me an emoticon about how this chapter made you feel, or you also recently finished watching Julie and the Phantoms and want to scream about how great it is at me, I would love it!


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The extended Wayne family are all going somewhere together, but they seem to be missing a member. Where is Dick Grayson?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year and thank you so much for reading! This is the final chapter, and something of an epilogue to this little series, so I hope you enjoy it. To everyone who subscribed after the first chapter and has kept up with me diligently ever since, thank you; to everyone who was already subscribed to me after reading my other stuff and checked this out even though they'd definitely forgotten who I am, thank you; to everyone who just saw this randomly in the scroll of a fandom or a tag at some point over the last few weeks or just today and decided it looked interesting enough to click on, thank you.   
> I do this for a lot of reasons, but being able to put something that people enjoy into the world is a big one, and that reason wouldn't exist without you, the readers. I hope you enjoy this, the last chapter, and that if you're having a bad day, this helps make you feel better.

**Six**

The entire extended Wayne family were all together, a rare enough occasion that the paparazzi were out in force. The ones who followed Tim around and the ones who followed Cass around (when she let them) were having a nice catch up, having not seen each other in a while. Even Jason was loitering at the back of the pack, trying to look like he was reluctant to be there. It would have been more convincing if he hadn’t offered to carry Barbara’s handbag for her – she was quite capable of carrying it on her lap, but the bag she was using that day was a lovely shade of dark pink, so she was very gracious and thankful for his generosity. Damian and Tim led the pack, bickering about something or other, while Stephanie appeared to be explaining something on an app on her phone to Alfred, and Bruce and Cassandra walked next to them in fond silence.

Not the entire Wayne family was there, actually. The group of photographers who had named themselves ‘the Dick Squad’ (all the other Wayne family paparazzi hated it) had come along too, just because they had no idea where their subject was and all their colleagues seemed to be in together for once. The precise current location of Dick Grayson was something of a surprise to a lot of people, including the ‘Wayne Press Corps’ as they were known only by themselves (everyone else in the world leaned towards a variant of ‘gossip-chasing paparazzi scum’, although Cass had referred to them as ‘flashers’ once when she was startled by the lights, and among the kids it had stuck). Bruce Wayne knew, though, as evidenced by his small, proud smile as he counted everyone into the circus tent they had now arrived at.

Everyone who worked in the Wayne Press Corps of course knew the significance of Haly’s Circus to the family, and the quiet mumbled confusion over Dick’s whereabouts had turned into a small hubbub when it became clear that that was where they were going. They split up into the groups representing each different gossip news outlet or celebrity photo website to rock-paper-scissors over which of them bought a ticket to get into the circus and get the photos of the family together and find out what was going on with Dick. The resulting group was a squadron made up of one Bruce, two Tims, one Cass, and three Dicks. The guy who tagged along with the group for Butler’s World Magazine, who had always felt somewhat excluded from the Corps because he wasn’t from the same outlet as any of them and never went in on any of their group fast food orders, also bought himself a ticket. He was the only celebrity butler photo-journalist in the world, and he could enjoy a day at the circus, goddammit.

The many photographs that were taken of the Wayne family, sat all together and talking among themselves at the circus like any regular family who weren’t billionaires, almost exclusively failed to capture several members of the audience who were strangely wearing baseball caps and sunglasses to sit in a circus tent. Apart from the one who was wearing a wig, colour contacts, and a false nose, who was feeling rather put out that the others had interpreted the strict ‘wear disguises’ instruction with such low commitment. One of them was wearing his sunglasses over a pair of what looked like regular glasses.

The show was incredible, as always. Pyrotechnics and incredible feats of human agility and strength wowed the audience, as they had done every time but one that Haly’s Circus had come to Gotham previously. Then, both the presence of almost the entire Wayne family and the absence of it’s one missing member were explained in an instant. A giant net was wheeled in and unfolded to stretch a few metres in the air over the entire stage floor, and from the high wire, the glint of a trapeze was seen by all as it was lowered into place and hit by spotlights. Dressed in a brightly coloured unitard, the last Flying Grayson stepped out from behind the curtains to raucous applause – none louder than from the group sat perfectly positioned in the stands for the best view of the trapeze.

There was no music to hype up the crowd, or showy flashes of lights or fire. The Flying Graysons had never relied on gimmicks like elaborate costumes or special effects. Now, it was just one young man climbing a ladder quickly and confidently while an entire crowd watched in the knowing awe that comes from the certainty that you are witnessing a historic event. 

Halfway up the ladder, it was like something clicked for Dick – like the performer inside of him woke up and urged him to put on a show. He was all smiles for the audience, blowing a kiss in one specific direction that nonetheless caused a lot of blushing, and flipping his way up the ladder like gravity was something that had just slipped his mind. Then, he was at the top, and the trapeze bar was in his hands. His hands were covered in chalk, there was a strong net below him that he had checked a dozen times before the show and that Bruce had checked at least twice thinking Dick hadn’t seen him, and more importantly, he was the best in the world at this. He had been the best in the world ever since he was a child, when the numbers 1 and 2 spots were vacated right in front of him. And for once, he wouldn’t be pushing that from his mind – he would be bringing them with him as he flew over the circus.

There really were no words to describe a Flying Grayson in action – it was poetry through movement, the smooth curves of a swinging body in perfect harmony with a trajectory, punctuated by the way he would suddenly be upside down, handing by just his intertwined ankles, or just one knee, or suddenly by one hand again, spinning in mid air and twisting himself around the ropes like a pretzel. There were a lot of tricks that a solo trapeze performer just couldn’t do – there was nobody to catch him at the end of a swing for him to really show off with his most impressive spins and flips. But Dick made up for it – in a moment that had the entire audience holding their breath, he let go of the trapeze at just the right second to land himself perfectly on the high wire, which he cartwheeled and flipped his way across like he was doing an Olympic balance beam routine, only to catch the trapeze as it swung over his head again without even looking with the perfect faith of someone who has practiced something so much that they know exactly how every variable will behave.

The performance seemed to last both an instant and an hour, and nobody could agree afterwards. There had been no applause until the end, with the audience sat in rapturous silence throughout. But he let go of the trapeze completely on its last upswing away from the centre of the tent and flew through the air, somersaulting once, twice, three times, four times, before landing safely and with practiced ease in the net. Then, the room went wild, with a standing ovation featuring a number of whistles and hoots from a small faction of the crowd before that faction got a disapproving look from Alfred. The photographer for Butler’s World Magazine would brag for months about having recovered himself in time to get a shot of the disapproving look in question.

Many photographers had failed to take a single image after Dick climbed the ladder, but were now snapping away at what would probably be better shots for their publications than stills of a trapeze performance anyway, or so they tried to tell themselves. Dick Grayson was surrounded by a mob of family, a mixture of Wayne and Haly’s Circus. Once the crowd had dissipated a little as the other circus members left to pack up after the end of the show, there would be many shots in the gossip rags the next day of tight hugs between Dick and all of his siblings. They would include Damian with his arms wrapped firmly around Dick’s waist; Dick bending down to hug Tim (several of the photographers were annoyed that they couldn’t tell what it was that Dick was whispering to him); Dick spinning his sister Cassandra and her friend Stephanie around with impressive strength in a half hug-half ballet move; some sort of complicated high five with Jason that started awkwardly but ended in a one-armed hug; and a gentle and lovely embrace from Alfred.

The one the ‘real’ newspapers used, though, was a beautiful shot that Butler’s World didn’t want because it was taken accidentally while adjusting settings to wait for Alfred exiting the tent – Bruce and Dick, backlit by the sun so well that they were little more than silhouettes, with Bruce’s arm around Dick’s shoulders. The next morning, at Wayne Manor’s kitchen table, with the usual chaos of breakfast all around, Bruce squinted at the cover of the family’s preferred local newspaper. It had two photos side by side, both of Bruce and Dick walking together out of Haly’s Circus, backs to the camera, Bruce’s hand on Dick’s shoulder. The one on the right was the one taken the previous day by Alfred’s stalker, and in the one on the left, Bruce’s hand just barely reached the shoulder of an eight-year old boy wrapped in Bruce’s suit jacket with a blue light flashing in front of them.

The headline was obscured by a plate full of croissants and a jug of orange juice, but it definitely featured the word ‘phoenix’. Bruce decided to rescue it before it could get anything spilled on it, but as he looked around at all of his children and the chaos they’ve brought to his life that he wouldn’t trade for anything, he thinks that he would have framed even if it was covered in juice, grease, and crumbs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading, and getting to the end of this little series! I'm hoping that this year I'm going to be posting a lot more, so if you've enjoyed what you've read then please consider subscribing to me so you see every time I post something new.  
> If you liked this story as a whole, or just this chapter, it would mean a lot if you would leave me a comment. I would also love to see what you think the name of the photographer from Butler's World Magazine is and who it might have been who went all in on their disguise! The best name suggestion may end up featuring in a oneshot about him, my new favourite accidentally invented OC, if enough people say that they would read that!  
> If you have anything else you would like to see me write, I am 100% very enthusiastically taking prompts, and my list is currently depressingly short - is there an 'outtake' from this series you'd like to see, like a full version of a scene I just hinted at or something that might have happened at some point in here that I didn't cover? Or is there something totally different you just think I might be the right person to tackle? Or just a vague idea that you'd like to see what I'd do with? You would make not just my day, but my week!  
> This is getting super long, so I will once again shill my other stories, of which there are hopefully soon to be more, and again thank everyone who has read, kudosed, and left comments. To the angels who have left comments on every single chapter, you know who you are, please know that I notice, and I love you for doing it!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. Please give me a kudos and a comment if you have the time, it takes very little effort from you to make me very happy! 
> 
> I am officially taking prompts for short stories, DC or Marvel, or if you have another fandom you want to see me write then ask and I might be in it, you never know! If you've read my other work too then you'll know what sort of thing is in my wheelhouse, and I promise that I'll do my best to actually write prompts if I say I will.


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